Orla Kiely Returns to Target

ABOVE: ALEXA CHUNG AT THE ORLA KIELY AND BELKIN FOR TARGET LAUNCH PARTY AT ORLA KIELY IN SOHO

“I need a box,” pint-sized Orla Kiely joked yesterday evening as she posed for photographs between DJs Alexa Chung and Tennessee Thomas at her Soho shop. Dozens of guests gathered to eat snow cones, sip on watermelon mojitos, and create their own flower arrangements to fete the designer’s collaboration with Belkin on a series of iPhone and iPad cases. Adorned with Kiely’s signature prints, the products are the latest in an ongoing collaboration between the designer and Target. “It’s always worked well in the past when we’ve collaborated,” says Kiely of working with the retail giant. “Their customer likes the color and the pattern. Their customer likes design.”

“I like parties these days,” remarked Chung as she surveyed the selection of snacks, inventive cocktails, and girlish activities in the shop. She and longtime pal Thomas, two English roses, adore the London-based brand and its charming designer. “It’s one of those names you don’t really think of being a person,” says Thomas. “And then when you meet the person behind it you’re like, ‘Oh, this is lovely, isn’t it!'” Chung and Thomas’ selection of throwback tunes ideally fit the girlish garden-party vibe of the event. “Tennessee has a thing where she has a panic attack if she hears anything past 1969,” says Chung. It was an evening as charming and whimsical as Orla Kiely herself, which is, ahem, a tall order.

FOR MORE ON ORLA KIELY AND BELKIN’S COLLABORATION FOR TARGET, VISIT THE TARGET WEBSITE.